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The 17th Geneviève McMillan Reba Stewart Fellow: Mati Diop
Short Films

Free Admission with Harvard ID
Director in Person
$12 Special Event Tickets

00:00 / 00:00
      Short Films by Mati Diop introduction and post-screening discussion with David Pendleton and Mati Diop.

      PROGRAM

      • Atlantiques

        Directed by Mati Diop.
        With Alpha Diop, Cheikh M’Baye, Ouli Seck, Serigne Seck.
        France/Senegal, 2009, DCP, color, 15 min.
        Wolof and French with English subtitles.
        DCP source: Le Fresnoy

      Sitting before a beachside fire, and barely illuminated against the night sky, Serigne (Serigne Seck, appearing as himself) and two friends weigh the dangers of crossing the sea to Europe by pirogue, a small fishing vessel not built for deep water. Faced with unemployment and hunger at home, Serigne argues that there is no choice but to leave, even if it means risking one’s life. “Forget Europe,” a friend urges. “Let’s speak of here, Africa.” Like the shot of a rotating lighthouse lens that concludes the film, their conversation circles itself. There’s talk of family, of sacrifice, and even of magical transformation from man into fish, sometimes little more than voices in the dark.

      • Big in Vietnam

        Directed by Mati Diop.
        With Henriette Nhung, Ghe Büi, Mike N'Guyen.
        France/Senegal, 2012, DCP, color, 29 min.
        French with English subtitles.
        DCP source: Neon Productions

      Big in Vietnam depicts the making of a film, a Franco-Vietnamese adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos’s Les Liaisons dangereuses. In Big in Vietnam, the production stalls when the lead actor goes missing in the woods, and the director Henriette similarly abandons the set. Leaving the film in the tentative hands of her son, she wanders the streets of Marseille, eventually entering a Vietnamese restaurant. There, in a duet sung with a mysterious man, she finds the sensual quality she had been seeking in her film. As night turns to morning, he tells her stories of home. She asks about a tattoo on his arm, which means “the life far away.”

      • Snow Canon

        Directed by Mati Diop.
        With Nour Mobarak, Chan Coïc, Alban Guyon, Nilaya Bal.
        France/Senegal, 2011, 35mm, color.
        French with English subtitles.

      Snow Canon, a coming-of-age story catalyzed by an erotic encounter with an American babysitter, is inspired by events from Diop’s own life, along with touches of the Stendhal short story “Vanina Vanini.” In the film, the teenage Vanina is by turns petulant and curious about the alluring older stranger. At her family’s chalet, the shades are perpetually drawn, creating for the pair a private, sensual world set against the magisterial French Alps outside.

      Part of film series

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